Look for MS-70 quarters

Ever see a 5-year-old get a shiny red fire truck for Christmas or some other gift that he wanted badly?

Then you have an idea of the excited tone of voice I heard on the phone when a collector from Memphis gave me a jingle.

He wanted me to know that large numbers of Mint State state quarters were being released by the banks in Memphis. He said they were in original rolls.

The state quarters that he had encountered in this form, he said, were New York, Texas, Maryland and Vermont.

He just wanted me to know about this. I appreciate it. It is amazing what I learn from the spontaneous calls from readers.

Sure the world seems all agog about Twitter messages or regular e-mails and cable news programs seem to be less about news and more about simply begging for viewers to send messages, but much useful information still comes to me in the form of telephone calls and U.S. Postal Service mail deliveries.

I would expect that if collectors undertake a canvas of other banks in other major cities that they might just find either supplies of state quarters backed up in the banking system or quantities cashed in by coin owners now down on their luck because of the severe recession.

However, they got there, now is the time to cherry-pick through the quarters to find the highest grades possible. Remember that original rolls might just contain some coins that can make an MS-70 grade, which in the long term is a better hold than “mere” MS-65 coins, especially for the state quarters that have astronomically high mintages.

The best part is this effort is that it takes time but little money as these coins can be acquired for face value.

Why not jump into this and let me know what you find in your neck of the woods?